30-foot fall kills circus performer
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Dessi Espana, 32, was twirling on long chiffon scarves when the cloth gave way during Saturday's performance, witnesses said. She died later that night.
It was the first fatal accident in a Ringling Bros. circus in at least a decade, spokesman Mark Riddell said yesterday.
Espana was not using a safety harness because of the way she had to move in the performance, and chiffon acts traditionally don't use nets, Riddell said.
The 2-1/2-hour show continued as medical personnel and circus officials worked on Espana, who came from a family of Bulgarian performers.
Pennsylvania man kept alive by pump finally gets heart transplant
HERSHEY, Pa. — The first person in the United States to get a revolutionary heart pump received a long-needed heart transplant Saturday after finally convincing doctors he had stopped smoking.
Officials at Hershey Medical Center said Gayle Snider, 36, of West York, Pa., received the heart of a 24-year-old man who died in the Philadelphia area.
Snider had needed a heart transplant since 1996, when his heart was severely damaged, possibly by a virus. But for years, he was ineligible because he smoked.
On May 14, 2003, he received an Arrow LionHeart, an experimental heart-assist pump developed at the Hershey hospital. The implantable device took over the work of his heart's main pumping chamber.
Snider said he hasn't smoked since the day before he got the experimental pump, but doctors would not take his word for it. He had to submit to six months of random urine tests to prove he no longer smoked.
More than 200 suffer heat exhaustion at concert
WASHINGTON — Nearly 50 people were sent to area hospitals, and more than 200 others were treated for heat exhaustion Saturday at a concert festival at RFK Stadium.
The daylong HFStival, sponsored by local alternative-rock radio station WHFS-FM, featured acts performing on several stages. Among the headline performers were The Cure, The Offspring, Papa Roach, Jay-Z and The Violent Femmes.
Thousands of concertgoers crowded onto the stadium field in sweltering heat and danced violently in several mosh pits.
The most serious injuries came out of those pits, city Fire and Emergency Medical Services spokesman Alan Etter said.
One 18-year-old man was treated for chest pains, and several other people suffered broken or dislocated bones.
Robotic dinos to come alive at Los Angeles Zoo exhibit
LOS ANGELES — It won't exactly be "Jurassic Park," the movie in which scientists used DNA to bring dinosaurs back from extinction. But then the robotic dinosaurs at the Los Angeles Zoo won't try to eat the visitors, either.
"The idea is to show people what dinosaurs looked like, how they might have moved and to use that to connect them with living animals — things like the rhinoceros, the cassowary and reptiles we have in our collection, living animals whose ancestors are very ancient," said zoo Director John Lewis.
Zoo officials also want to drive home the point that today's animals could go the way of the dinosaurs unless they're protected.
"We don't want people in the future saying, 'What was the tiger like?"' he said.
The zoo's Dinosaur Den opens Friday with 18 robotic animals, including a Tyrannosaurus rex and a triceratops.